The story is told from the third person limited narrative point of view, which means that the reader views the story's action from the main character's perspective. With this point of view, the reader is also aware of the main character's thoughts and emotions, but the author limits this intuition by excluding the thoughts of any other characters.

The story's setting is a wharf somewhere in South America and the immediate surroundings where the boy wanders is a rough part of the town. The author describes it by saying, "The great city that rose up beyond the back streets with their taverns and cheap inns did not attract him; it seemed a place of slavery: stale, dark, without the grand sweep of the sea; among its high walls and narrow streets people lived and died bewildered by agonizing drudgery."